Valentino Rossi has been struggling this off-season. Rossi moved to a new team this year, and is doing his best to get the feel of his new Ducati GP11. But an injured shoulder has prevented him from pushing the Ducati to its limits, and today, illness kept Rossi off of the track entirely.
Rossi showed up to the track to this morning, but after feeling ill, decided that it was best to return to his hotel room to rest.
“(Rossi) was feeling weakened by fever and cold when he arrived at the track this morning,” said Ducati in a press release. “After consulting with the team and with doctors from Clinica Mobile, he returned to his hotel, where he underwent anti-flu treatment.”
With Rossi resting in hotel room, Nicky Hayden took to the track to try and finalize settings on the GP11.
“It wasn’t the smoothest day, as we had a couple of time-consuming glitches,” Hayden said. “We had planned to put on some fresh tyres at the end to see how good the changes we’d made really were, but we had a small problem with the gearbox near the end, and there wasn’t time to go back out.”
Hayden finished the testing session more than 2 seconds behind the pace setter, Casey Stoner.
“We still did 44 laps though, and it was a pretty solid day overall. The team really worked hard today, so thanks to them as always. Our gap to the front is still quite big, but we’ve definitely managed to get the chatter a lot better. It’s not completely cured, but it’s good enough that we can focus on some other stuff. I’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow, so hopefully we can take a big step and leave here positive.”
